Nonfiction.

Tough Talk From Detroit's Fiery Ex-mayor, Coleman Young

February 20, 1994|By Reviewed by Tim Jones, a Tribune financial writer and a former reporter for the Detroit Free Press.

Hard Stuff: The Autobiography of Coleman Young

By Coleman Young and Lonnie Wheeler

Viking, 334 pages, $22.95

In an era of stage-managed, poll-driven, sound bite-bitten politicians, there's something refreshing about practitioners of the blunt, the crude and the profane. They appeal to those of us who, for one reason or another, feel forgotten or abused. And they certainly are entertaining. The problem with many of these politicians-Ross Perot is a good example-is that the novelty can quickly wear off as people realize that beneath the earthiness and quips there is more of the same and little else.

Coleman Alexander Young, Detroit's first black mayor and the city's unrivaled potentate for 20 years, is an exception. There is substance beneath the rough exterior. Others can rage against inequality, but Young lived it in one of the country's most racially polarized cities.

Young's autobiography, "Hard Stuff," co-authored with Lonnie Wheeler, is a candid and profane recollection of a hell-raising political activist who, it could be argued, had the most difficult mayor's job in the country. Unfortunately, "Hard Stuff" also reveals how efficient a fuel bitterness can be, for Young's tank is always full of high-octane bile.

To many of Young's loyal supporters, this informally written volume will be seen as his justifiable revenge against the press, the FBI, suburban racists and a criminally indifferent federal government. To his critics, it will merely confirm their belief that Young drove the Motor City straight to hell. To most, though, "Hard Stuff" will be a story of a long personal struggle-one that suggests that radicals of the kind Young claims to be are more effective rattling the cage of the political establishment from the outside than calling the shots from within.

"... The only thing I find as contemptible as a conservative establishment bigot is a bleeding-heart . . . liberal. Liberals talk as though they would change the world, but all of the things required to change the world are basically the things that liberals are not." Young writes. "Liberals ... nibble cheese and model the latest political fashions in front of each other while radicals and money are at work changing the world."

Changing the world is what Young is about. In "Hard Stuff" he tells of his fights against racial discrimination in the Army during World War II, his bold challenge to the House Un-American Activities Committee when called to testify and his clashes with the United Auto Workers over his efforts to promote racial equality.

Young's dedication to political causes took a personal toll. By his mid-40s he had seen two marriages break up, and his work record consisted of a string of menial jobs.

"A psychiatrist would have probably told me that I couldn't keep a job because, deep down, I didn't want to keep a job," Young writes. "I needed a cause. I needed to rally people, to organize something ... to stir up some trouble."

His election to the state Senate gave him some financial security and the means to enter the chambers of political power, and in 1973 he was elected mayor. The outsider was finally inside. But as Young was going up, Detroit was going down.

Perhaps no American city has a more negative image than Detroit does. But the city's problems didn't start with Young. The wheels of corporate exodus were turning before he took the oath of office. Detroit's economy was an aging, one-track pony, and the city bled profusely as the auto industry contracted.

Despite the heavy odds Young faced, his string of accomplishments is impressive: among them, integrating the Detroit police department, improving minority hiring and helping to win the construction of two new auto assembly plants. Indeed, Young exhibited an uncanny ability to work with corporate leaders especially during the first half of his tenure.

But he could not shed the confrontational tactics of the radical when it came to the suburbs, often seeming tone-deaf to his incendiary rhetoric. Political attacks on Young or the city would quickly be labeled racist. Increasingly reclusive and autocratic, he also could be blinded by pride, refusing to watch the Detroit Pistons in person once they left the city for a new stadium in the suburbs.

Earthy, blunt and, at times, outrageous, "Hard Stuff" is Coleman Young-and proudly so. But its anger wears thin after a while, just as Young's penchant for blaming others grows tiresome. And finally, in its bitterness, the book gives his critics the ammunition to trivialize the considerable good that Young did for Detroit under tough circumstances.